Can She See His Face?
by blondie1010
Summary: Post-Revival: Sometimes the most obvious answers are the ones right in front of us. (A series of connected one-shots on the important moments of Rory and Jess's ever evolving friendship with each other. NO Logan bashing present here)
1. Wedding Day Confessions

**_Author's Note_** _: I had so many thoughts running through my head after watching (the sublime) Fall episode of Gilmore Girls: Year in the Life. In my head, Jess is Rory's "Luke," and it's only a matter of time before she realizes it. This fic will be a series of important moments in Rory and Jess's friendship, each one gradually building to a realization that the perfect person for the other is right in front of them. (Important to note there will be NO Logan bashing in this story. He's not my favorite character, but my love of Matt won't stand for any fictional abuse of his character.)_

* * *

It was the perfect day for a wedding.

The sun was shining while the crisp fall air ruffled the changing leaves overhead, and almost everyone from Star's Hollow was milling around in the cheery sunlight, having showed up to witness the (second) wedding between the beloved diner owner and inn keeper. The day couldn't have been more ideal if it had been personally planned and organized by the great Emily Gilmore herself.

Rory wished she could focus on that fact rather than the unexpected development that had reared its head in her life a few days earlier. Pushing the still full glass of celebratory champagne away from her, she recalled the brief conversation with her mother earlier that morning.

 _"Mom?"_

 _"Yeah."_

 _"I'm pregnant."_

 _Lorelai sat in stunned silence for a few moments, absorbing the shock of her daughter's bald statement. "Full freakin' circle," she muttered a few seconds later under her breath, seemingly at a loss to say anything else._

 _After a few seconds more of careful thought, she caught Rory's hands up in her own and said the most perfectly Lorelai Gilmore thing that Rory needed to hear in that moment. "I'm here for you, kid. Always." Her eyes started to tear up then, and she had to take a deep breath in order to finish her thought. "I know it's scary, but no matter what happens, I'm here."_

 _Rory felt the hot tears she had been holding in since the shock of her discovery roll down her cheeks as she pulled her mother to her. Her rock. Her fortress. "I love you, Mom."_

 _"Love you too, kid."_

Pushing the stem of her champagne flute across the linen covered table, Rory watched the fall sunshine sparkle through the liquid, and a smile formed on her face as she thought of her mother. No matter what happened, no matter how many petty fights or major argument they might have, she could always depend on her mom. Things always seemed a little less bleak with Lorelai Gilmore on your side.

"Enjoying your lunch I see."

Rory looked up from her drink into the smiling eyes of Jess Mariano. He had shaved since the day before, though his hair hung just as long as before around his ears and neck. He might look a bit rougher in his thirties than he had when he was younger, but the easiness in his stride and smile in his eyes were the more stark contrast to that young angry boy that had fascinated her years ago.

Jess's eyes squinted together in confusion as hers drifted off into the past. "Hey," he waved his hand playfully in front of her face, "you still there? How many lunches have you had so far?" He eyed her glass with exaggerated suspiciousness.

She laughed at his joke, shaking her head in denial. "None, actually. Taylor promised free ice cream later, so I'm saving up all my room for that. He's got a new flavor, chocolate bacon. Sounds very promising." Pushing the glass further out of reach, she waved him to sit next to her.

"Well I can see why you wouldn't want to miss that," he joked after taking a seat. He turned to look at her and squinted his eyes again, taking in the far away look on her face. "You ok? I'll be honest, I thought you'd be a little more peppy after finishing those first three chapters. Which, by the way, I hope I get that chance to look at later. It was a little hard to read with the pages just dangling in front of my face."

He gave her a playful shove, and she pushed back with an indulgent smile stretching her lips. "Sure thing. They're back at the house if you want to come by later. I need an honest opinion on them since Mom refused to read it until it's all finished."

"I can see why she'd say that," Jess agreed with a solemn nod. "It's hard to be objective about something you're too close to." He paused for a second as a thought hit him. "How close _is_ this to your personal life?"

Rory knew where he was going with this line of questioning. "I'll be as kind as possible."

"Don't be kind, Rory," he cut off her explanation with a shake of his head. "Be honest. It reads better." She hesitated to respond after that, and he continued. "I know how much of an ass I was back then. It's not like it'll come as a big shock when I read about it on paper."

"You're so different now than back then," she finally spoke again. "I almost feel bad about bringing it back up."

Jess reached out to give her hand a quick squeeze. "Don't," he repeated his request. "I was an angry kid. Unlike you, I let my life turn me into someone I didn't even like myself. Maybe someone else can learn from my mistakes."

His words pricked a worry inside her chest that had been lying dormant since his arrival at her table. "How did you stop being angry?" The question came out with a tensely rushed statement, throwing off the friendly, easy-going vibe of their conversation up until that point.

If Jess noticed her change in mood, he didn't mention it. Instead he just answered her question. "I had to realize that being angry didn't make anything better. There were people in my life who _actually_ cared about me and wanted me. I had to accept what my life was and make the best of it. Hating the world doesn't make it any easier to live in."

His answer seemed to set her a little more at ease, but a line of worry still creased her forehead. "Rory," Jess covered her hand again, a platonic but comforting gesture. "What's wrong?"

She stared at his strong, tanned hand covering her soft, pale one, keeping her eyes there instead of on his face. She didn't know why the words left her mouth. It wasn't as if she and Jess were even the closest of friends any more, though she felt a comfortable rapport with him that was hard to explain after the history they shared together. The truth was, she felt safe with him, a fact that prompted her to confess something she wouldn't have even thought of mentioning to anyone else. For some crazy reason, she felt like she could confide in him.

"I'm pregnant."

The confession was soft now, not as loud and confident as before. Almost as if the time that had passed between now and this morning had made it less true than before. She kept staring down as she kept talking. "I'm going to raise it on my own, like my mom raised me."

To Jess's credit, he didn't ask the most obvious question, a question she had no intention of answering right now any way, maybe not ever. Instead, like he always did, he got right to the root of the problem. "You're wondering if you can do it on your own."

She nodded her head, still focusing her eyes on their hands atop the table. "You're Rory Gilmore." The fondness in his voice prompted her to look up. The eyes that had been filled with friendly laughter now graced her with affectionate warmth. "You can do anything."

For some reason, his confidence in her threatened to bring back the tears she had shed on her mother's shoulder that morning. "I'm the girl who can't even afford underwear. Remember?"

His grip on her hand tightened as he emphasized his point. "I remember you're the girl who made it into one of the best colleges in the country, worked on the campaign for the President of the United States, and spent the last ten years doing what she loved. You're the girl who's writing the country's next bestseller. If you can do all of that, Rory, you can do this."

"You don't know that," Rory shook her head, attempting to pull her hand back from the warm comfort of his fingers.

He prevented her attempt, keeping her still so he could make her believe his words. "I know _you_."

"You just admitted yourself that you spent the first half of your life being angry about it. How do I know - ?" she stopped the sentence before the words could do their damage, but he understood her meaning well enough.

"What if your kid turns out like me?" he finished her question for her. The smirk on his face told her he wasn't angry about the comparison of her unborn child to him. "Are you saying you would be disappointed if the next Gilmore turned out to be this amazing?" Jess gestured to himself in mock offense.

"I'm saying I'm afraid I won't be enough to make it happy." Referring to the baby as "it" still made the situation seem like a dream rather than the reality it was.

Jess leaned back in the chair, assessing her with a fond look. "You'd be enough to make anyone happy, Rory. And if I have to harass you with phone calls on an annoyingly regular basis to remind you of that, then I guess that's just what I'll have to do."

She still wasn't as entirely convinced of her mothering skills as Jess but decided to let the subject rest for the moment. "On the topic of helpful advice, I _do_ want your help with something, though it's not about babies." Jess let the subject change without comment. "Since you've always been so honest with me, I'm going to need that on an annoyingly regular basis while I write this book," she said, using his own words. "I need an editor who's close enough to this story to have an accurate perspective but far enough away to view things objectively."

Jess grinned, catching her meaning. "Rory Gilmore, are you asking me to be your editor?"

"Yes, Jess Mariano, I most definitely am."

"Well, my fees are astronomical, but I'll give you the old friends' discount," he answered, brows lifted playfully.

In moments like this, with his handsome face relaxed with the happiness that only peace in life can bring, Rory found herself marveling that this was the same boy who used to walk around like he carried the weight of the world on his shoulders, always lashing out at those closest to him who tried their best to relieve him of it.

Turned out, it was only something he could come to terms with himself, and she was glad he did. That angry bad boy might have been the stuff teenage fantasies are made of, but this joking, confident man in front of her was the friend she wanted in life for the long haul.

"Then it's a deal, Mr. Perkins." She extended her hand to seal the bargain.

He shook it before asking, "If I'm Perkins, then who are you in this scenario, Hemmingway or Fitzgerald? I have to be honest, I was getting kind of used to Roundbottom."

She rolled her eyes without dignifying his reminder about her position on the Stars Hollow Gazette with a response. "Don't you have a best man speech to give?"

"My work is never done," he sighed, getting up to head to the table where Taylor was studiously overseeing every last detail of their last-minute, perfect-fall wedding. "Hey, Rory," he turned back briefly before heading to perform his duties, "If you need anything, _anything_ at all. Just let me know."

As she watched him walk away, Rory sensed his offer had extended past just giving advice on her book, and she appreciated him all the more for the effort.

Lifting her closed lids up toward the warm rays of sun and cradling the worrisome life inside her belly, she said to no one in particular, "Louis, I think this is the beginning of a beautiful friendship."


	2. Painting a Nursery

_It's my goal to have some of these moments between Rory and Jess parallel important moments that Luke and Lorelai shared together, and this particular one was inspired by the season one episode where Lorelai gave Luke advice on the colors to paint his diner. Enjoy!_

* * *

Rory took a moment to roll out the knot of pain in her back before readjusting the phone against her ear. "I finished the last two chapters last night, but I wanted another chance to look them over before I sent them to you."

"Take as long as you need," Jess reassured her from the other end of the line. "If they're the same quality of everything else I've seen so far, you'll have no problem getting an agent to shop this out to publishers."

Rory readjusted the phone again to her other shoulder before picking up the roller she had just dipped in the tray of bubblegum pink paint. "Well, I couldn't have done it without my editor."

She suspected Jess was about to return her compliment with another of his own, but the knot of pain suddenly returned. With a yelp, she dropped the roller as she reached back to clutch the offending area on her spine.

"Rory?" Jess's concerned voice sounded through the phone. "What's wrong?"

"My back," she answered with a tortured groan, trudging to the little kitchen in her new (old) home to retrieve a wet rag for cleaning up the splatter of pink across her tiled floor. Emily had insisted on gifting Rory with a small nest egg to help purchase a home for her and the baby. Though she had been inclined to refuse, once her grandparent's house had sold for a rather nifty sum, Rory knew she was in no position to reject her grandmother's offer. With every promise of paying it back, she had used the money to help purchase a little house on the edge of Stars Hollow.

"I was going to try to paint the nursery now that I've finished with the book. It's turning out to be a little more difficult than I thought," she explained as she wet an old rag Luke had left there when he and Lorelai helped her move into the house almost two months before. If not for their summer trip to Europe, a honeymoon that had been several months delayed, she would have asked for help in painting the little bedroom. Since they weren't there, Rory had thought she could do it on her own, but the lower back pain that had sneaked up on her one week ago apparently didn't share that opinion.

Jess seemed to be in agreement with her back. "Rory, you shouldn't be painting. You're almost seven months pregnant!" She was about to respond to that when he continued without skipping a beat. "I'm on my way over. I'll be there in a few hours."

"Jess," Rory stopped what she was doing at the sound of his unexpected offer. "You don't have to do that. It'll take up your entire weekend to come over here to paint a nursery."

The sound of a rustling jacket muffled his voice, but she still managed to catch the response. "I didn't have that exciting of a weekend planned anyway. And, hey, this way I can see the pages even sooner instead of waiting for them to come in the mail. See you soon."

With that succinct response, the line clicked, and he was gone. Rory stared down at his blinking name on the screen until it went dark. Maybe it was the pregnancy hormones, but his selfless offer to drive hours to Connecticut to paint a nursery for a baby he was in no way responsible for brought hot tears to her eyes. She scrubbed at her itchy eyes before the tears had a chance to fully form.

Ever since she told Jess about the pregnancy months ago, he had called her at least once a week to check on how she was doing. After three months of weekly phone calls, they had moved to texts in addition to the calls, some related to the book and some not. It surprised her how easily they had fallen into a friendship with one another considering their rocky past, but the man who had become one of her closest friends these past months was so different from the boy who had run from her more than once in their youth.

As Rory continued to grow closer to Jess, she remembered a poem she had once read by Charlie Chaplin about a man who had learned to finally love himself. One stanza in particular had reminded her of Jess's transformation from an angry young man into the mature adult he had become. She texted it to him one night on a whim. She didn't include any explanation with the text, just the lines themselves.

" _As I began to love myself I refused to go on living in the past and worry  
about the future. Now, I only live for the moment, where EVERYTHING  
is happening. Today I live each day, day by day, and I call it 'FULFILLMENT'_."

After she sent the text, the phone pinged no less that a minute later with his answer. It was simply another line from the very same poem.

" _As I began to love myself I stopped craving for a different life,  
and I could see that everything that surrounded me was inviting me to grow.  
Today I call it 'MATURITY'_."

She smiled when she read the words. Of course he knew where that stanza had come from. The conversation could have ended there, but she thought of another quote from another poem, and he responded just the same way, with another fragment of the same work. That line of texting had continued until she fell asleep sometime around midnight.

Their friendship wasn't just restricted to their phones. When the morning arrived for her to move into her new home, she had woken up to find Jess in the kitchen with Luke, arguing about how to best tape up a box containing her old keepsakes from her bedroom. In the middle their heated debate over vertical lines as opposed to horizontal they finally noticed her. Jess explained that he was in the area anyway to help his mom with something, so he might as well help Rory move.

In fact, Rory had begun to notice since that morning that every time something major took place, whether it was throwing a baby shower or experiencing a particularly bad weekend of writer's block, Jess had always found a vague reason to be in Stars Hollow at the same time. Not that Rory would ever mention that she had noticed his obvious attempts keep an eye out for her in person. She was grateful for the company.

With this thought in mind, she sniffed away the hormonal tears over her friend's thoughtfulness and scrubbed up the tendrils of pink that had snaked their way across Luke's freshly installed wood-grain tile. She was glad at that moment his stubbornness had convinced her to let him replace the ratty carpet that had been there originally.

After she had scrubbed away the last trace of spilled paint, Rory leaned back against a box containing a yet-to-be-built changing table and closed her eyes to rest for a moment. When she opened them again, she would text Jess not to make the trip out to Stars Hollow that night. It was already past six o'clock on Saturday evening. He wouldn't be back in his Philadelphia apartment before the late hours of the next morning if he came that night.

However, whatever text she had meant to send never made it from her head to her phone. The next thing she knew, the delicate chime of her front doorbell was jolting her awake. Rubbing the dull ache at the base of her spine yet again, Rory realized she must have fallen asleep on the floor.

Groaning with the effort, she reached for the top of the large box behind her and pulled herself up. "Coming!" she called as she slowly made her way to the front door.

She opened it to find Jess's handsome face on the other side wearing a concerned expression. "You don't look great."

"Nice to see you too," she said around a yawn. She opened the door wider, and he stepped through. If he was already at her front door, then that nap must have been much longer than she originally thought.

He paused just inside the doorway and reached out to tilt her face up to his. "Seriously, Rory, are you ok?"

"Yeah, it's just some back pain that's been bothering me. Mom said that's normal in the second half of the pregnancy." She gave his wrist a squeeze of reassurance and he let go of her chin, though he didn't look convinced.

She turned to lead him into the nursery, and he followed. "I'm still surprised you convinced her to go with Luke on that trip," his voice sounded behind her.

"She would have kept coming up with some excuse or another even after the baby was born," Rory replied, stopping to gesture him inside the room. "So I convinced her that she should take it _before_ the baby was born, not _after_. That way she wouldn't miss any early days with her." Rory had found out six months into her pregnancy that the baby was going to be a girl. Luke had said he wouldn't have expected anything less from a Gilmore.

As she talked, Jess seemed to have stopped listening to her story. Looking up at the walls with a concerned crease between his eyebrows, he glanced at her questioningly. "How exactly did you plan to paint this room on your own? You didn't even tape off the trim and the ceiling."

"I was getting to that," she offered with a lame shrug.

They both knew that wasn't true. There wasn't a roll of painter's tape to be seen anywhere in the room. The last few pages of her book currently sitting on the kitchen counter had taken up so much of Rory's time and concentration that the room she had meant to prepare for her unborn child had been more of an afterthought than anything else.

Jess was gracious enough not to point out her obvious lie. "I've painted enough rooms that I can do the edging without it. Why don't you lie down and I'll finish up in here."

He said it like the job in front of him wouldn't keep him up all night, and Rory was hit with a fresh wave of guilt. "Jess, you don't have to – "

"I know," he interrupted. "I _want_ to though. That's what friends do. They help paint nursery's at crazy late hours of the night when their pregnant friend needs to be sitting down icing her back instead of doing the painting herself."

Rory plopped back in the spot she had been in when he rang the front doorbell a few minutes ago. "How about a compromise? You do the painting, but I sit here and keep you company."

His mouth hardened into a straight line while he considered the offer. "I guess," he finally sighed. "If you're going to be stubborn about it."

"I am," she concurred with a tired grin.

He shook his head, but a faint smile lifted the left corner of his mouth. He had to pour paint into a new tray as the forgotten one was hardened and useless by now. Before he got to the painting though, he also made sure to get some ice in a baggie from the kitchen and wrap it in a towel for her to put on her back.

Rory took the offering gratefully. "Thank you," she said through yet another yawn and leaned back with less discomfort than before.

A short nod was his only response before he picked up her abandoned roller from before and began rolling the delicately girly color on the oatmeal colored walls. Rory watched his arms as he trailed the roll up and down the wall, appreciating the way his muscles contracted and released with each pass of the roller.

Realizing the thought that had just flitted through her mind, she shook her head slightly trying to rid herself of it. Jess was her _friend_. That was it. There was no need to notice how her _friend_ had filled out so appealingly over the last several years.

" _Stop it, Rory!"_ a little voice scolded in her head. " _He came over here to help you, not to be ogled like a piece of delectable man meat."_

Rory shook her head again, trying to get that little voice to go away. She wasn't interested in Jess. Logan. She loved Logan. Or she _had_ loved him. _Did_ she still love him? Why was she noticing Jess?

"So the last few chapters are finished," she said suddenly, attempting to escape the confusing thoughts in her head. She must have said it a bit more loudly than necessary if his startled look was any indication.

His eyebrows pulled together slightly as he looked back at her. "I know. We were just talking about it a few hours ago."

"Oh, yeah," she frowned at how silly she sounded. "It's been a long day."

He gave a soft laugh. "How did you end it, by the way? I meant to ask before."

"I thought I would end it with my graduation," she answered. "It seemed a natural stopping point. Besides, it leaves room for more in case I want to write another one."

"Of course you'll write more," he said as if it were a forgone conclusion. "There's too many stories about the Gilmore ladies to keep it in one book." He resumed with his paint rolling but stopped abruptly as if a thought had hit him out of the blue.

He looked back at her with a funny look in his eye. When he asked the question on his mind, she understood why that look was there. "Did you include _everything_ about that day?"

She didn't miss his meaning by the way he stressed the word _everything_ and recalled the feeling when she had written about that one-sided phone conversation on her graduation day. It surprised her how much she had been affected it.

The pain of it had dulled so long ago that it was startling to be faced with the moment again. As the words formed in her head and appeared on the computer screen in front of her, it had almost been as if she were experiencing it again for the first time. More than once she had reached up to swipe a stray tear from her eye as she typed away.

The contrast of the person that stood in front of her now, pink roller in hand, was such a far cry from the silence on the other end of the phone line that day.

"I almost almost left that part out," she admitted quietly. He didn't ask her to clarify what that part was. He knew. "You're so different now than you were then," she kept talking, "but the person you were then left such a profound impact on me. I didn't see how I could leave that part out. It would have been like leaving a part of myself out of the story."

He absorbed her words. "I wrote about that phone call once too," he admitted in a soft whisper, taking her by surprise. He saw her confused look and explained. "It was after you came to see me in Philadelphia, when you tried to use me to cheat on that guy you were dating."

Rory face flamed with embarrassment after he brought up that night. She had been such a jerk, but Jess was kind enough not to dwell on her attempt to use him as revenge against Logan's cheating. "After you left I couldn't help thinking what would have happened if I had talked to you on the phone that day instead of acting like a complete coward. The thought was torturing me, so I just decided to write about it."

He stopped talking, and Rory prompted him to continue. "So what happened in this alternate dimension?"

"Nothing," he looked at her with a sad smile. "It hurt to much to remember how stupid I had acted with you. I didn't get past the opening paragraph."

"Well, I did my fair share of stupid things too," she assured him, smiling in commiseration. "That's why it's better to focus on where we are now. And to be honest – " she paused for a moment trying to get her thoughts in order so she would say the right thing. "To be honest, I wouldn't change anything. Because if things _had_ gone differently that day, we might not be here now. And I'm _so_ grateful for where we are now. We make mistakes because we learn from them, and we get better. We wouldn't be who we are without the mistakes we've made."

Jess thought about what she said, and nodded in agreement, a slight look of relief passing over his face before a joking grin took it's place. "Hey, I don't know if anyone's ever told you this, but you're kind of awesome at putting words together. I think maybe you should write a book."

"Shut up," she laughed and threw the paint splattered rag in his direction, but it had been the perfect comment to rid the tension that had settled briefly between them.

They were back to their easy camaraderie from before, and he resumed his painting while she caught him up on all the goings on of Stars Hollow, including Miss Patty's ill-advised attempt to have her five year old ballerinas perform swan lake and Taylor's latest dispute with Gypsy over a parking lot incident.

The time passed more quickly than she realized, and into the wee hours of the morning he was finally putting the final touches on the pink walls. As Jess cleaned up the mess, Rory pulled out an extra blanket and pillow from her bedroom and he came into the living room to find her arranging them on the couch.

"You don't have to – " he started to say, but it was her turn to interrupt.

"But I _want_ to," she said with a knowing smile, using his own words from before. "That's what friends do. They let their selfless friends crash on their couch for a night instead of making the three hour drive back to their apartment in the city when they should be getting some sleep instead."

Knowing he wouldn't be winning that argument, Jess threw up his hands in mock defeat. "Well, if you put it that way..." he trailed off with a yawn and immediately lay down in the spot she had made for him.

Rory gave his shoulder a grateful squeeze and wished him a good night. He said the same, and before Rory was even out of the room, her ears were met by the sound of his soft, even breathing. Of course he didn't snore in his sleep. She smiled to herself at the thought.

Before she went to her own room for the night, Rory took one more last look at his sleeping face and was reminded of the night she had come home to find Luke asleep on her mother's couch after one of their movie nights. Rory remembered how right it had seemed, finding Luke asleep on their couch like that. Lorelai and Luke hadn't even been together at the time, but he had been so at home in their lives even then, a solid, dependable friend her mother could always rely on.

Seeing Jess like that, blissfully unaware of the thoughts going through her head as she watched him sleep, she realized just how like Luke he had become. The selfless, caring man he was now seemed to be a younger reflection of his uncle who had made her mother so happy for so long. A warm feeling spread through her as she suddenly realized something. Somehow, without her even noticing, Jess was slowly becoming her Luke.

All the mistakes of the past, the angst and stupid decisions of their lives had led them here, to this wonderful, beautiful friendship. Maybe things could have run more smoothly if he hadn't run off when they were both eighteen, breaking her heart in the process.

But Rory had meant what she said before. Their mistakes over the years had led them both here, and it wasn't a bad place to be. It was rather a nice place, in fact. One she wouldn't trade for the world.


End file.
